Where to start

[Waxman]

I love the wing commander universe and I have some experience in making games.
So I want to make a WC style game. Since others own the title and the engine and I don't wish to waste the time and money acquiring either, and frankly. neither is required. The name Wing Commander is great for Notoriety but is not required for this except for tradition. The engine is so out-of-date it would require a major overhaul just to bring it current

This is a big community so someone has to know how to do an engine. I am not trying to lead this. I want this to be a community effort. Who is with me

List of projects I have done
Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries clan wars, Mercnet Online/ Single player campain maps. mutiplayer maps.

Freelancer arizona mod
Freelancer New Beginnings
Intro to Freelancer Privayeer the reckoning mod by Warzog

Current Projects
Tempered Storms: Project Lead main writer

MercNet Studios Founder

[Kyran]

I recall a while ago someone making a Wing Commander 1/2 engine that could use the original assets. I don't know what happened to it.

Have you looked into Flight Commander (easy) or Vega Strike (hard) as possible engines?

[Waxman]

No I have not where would I acquire them? Who do I speak to

[Kyran]

Website - http://flightcommander.solsector.net/

Forum - http://www.crius.net/zone/forumdisplay.php?f=27

[Mjr. Whoopass]

The most successful fan games so far have been Unknown Enemy and Standoff. You may want to ask those guys what to use.

[Dyret]

Why, cause the vison engine would be so super perfect for a Privateer game?

[Mjr. Whoopass]

I didn't know he was trying to make a Privateer game.

[Dyret]

Yeah, that was a bit harsh.

I'm just tired of certain posters using every subject to tell everyone how incredibly super-awesome Standoff is. Don't get me wrong, Standoff really is an amazing mod, it's just something you'd expect from creepy Vegastrike fans.

[Waxman]

I did not say it was a privateer style game in my post. That was my bad, and for that I apologize.

[Kyran]

I don't really think the Vision engine would be the way to go. It's all complicated and difficult.

[Dundradal]

Originally Posted by Dyret

Yeah, that was a bit harsh.

I'm just tired of certain posters using every subject to tell everyone how incredibly super-awesome Standoff is. Don't get me wrong, Standoff really is an amazing mod, it's just something you'd expect from creepy Vegastrike fans.

No, Vegastrike fans would be telling you that your mod should be run in Vegastrike than it would be incredibly super-awesome.

[PopsiclePete]

Originally Posted by Dyret

I'm just tired of certain posters using every subject to tell everyone how incredibly super-awesome Standoff is.

I don't see any post in this thread saying that Standoff is super-awesome, just a post that suggests the original poster to ask the makers of UE and Standoff about their experience with Vision. I don't know why you got that impression.

About the engine choice: Vision isn't super complicated nor difficult at all; however since building a game for Vision means modding WCP/SO, it's mostly limited to the tasks and abilities of an old engine. The choice to use Vision of not entirely depends on what you want to achieve: If you want to make a WC-esque game, have the power to do whatever you want with it and have super awesome graphics, Vision if not the way to go. To use Vision you gotta accept to live with it's limitations... if you do, you have a great engine to work with that actually feels like WC right out of your first build.

Personnaly I love working with Vision, but other member of my own team don't feel this way... but ultimately I feel it suited UE and Standoff just fine.

You can consider using the Vegastrike, Flight Commander or Freespace engines like other projects did, and it'll be fine. None is perfect, so I guess it a matter of choosing what suits you better. Just start with making a list of what you want to achieve, and ask around to see which engine can let you implement the features at the top of your list.

As for making a new engine from scratch, it's a huge endeavor for a community of fans... possible, but big, hard project. If you want to consider it you have to start off on the basis that you'd most likely make it on your own, like Eddie and is Flight Commander engine.

[overmortal]

Eh, it seems like anytime someone pops up and says "Let's do this project, I don't want to lead it", it usually ends up being that that someone isn't terribly interested in doing the actual work required to do something so ambitious in the first place.

Cool idea, great community spirit, but I don't forsee a real start, much less a completion. That said, you're more than welcome to prove me wrong.

[Dyret]

Originally Posted by PopsiclePete

I don't see any post in this thread saying that Standoff is super-awesome, just a post that suggests the original poster to ask the makers of UE and Standoff about their experience with Vision. I don't know why you got that impression.

Yeah, this wasn't the place for me to bring it up.

[Waxman]

My team has already created on engine for a game and that did take time.
This project is only in startup phase so it's all talk right now.
MercNet Studios does intend to do this project. So far on the new website that is going up the project is unnamed but it is a wc privateer style game.

I run the studio, I have a lot of vision but I am limited by a disability so that is why I said I do not wish to run it. Still most of my time is website related.
Having an engine that is already done would expedite production
So if you would like to help with anything, art, environment, music, writing, webdesign, anything at all. please send an e-mail to wax@mercnetstudios.com with a list of skills. why you like the series. and some kind of example of your work.

Joshua "Waxman"Stalcup
MercNet Studios founder

[Waxman]

Please visit the website at Mercnetstudios.com

[Kyran]

Originally Posted by Waxman

Please visit the website at Mercnetstudios.com

It sounds like what your trying to do is already happening. Check out Wing Commander Pioneer here.

That's a pretty neat site, especially that girl who acts like she has a clue about what she's talking about. Image gallery? Heh.

EDIT: Ah, you didn't personal make the layout, shame, it's really cool.

[Waxman]

Ah you visited no I did not make the flash templates yet. Still a wip , but I thought it best to have something up.

[Eder]

Originally Posted by Dyret

Why, cause the vison engine would be so super perfect for a Privateer game?

It's actually feasible and, although it might not turn out as great as Gemini Gold, it would turn out better than the bazillion projects who are announced with nothing to show for themselves and disappear after one week. This is the reason everyone always brings up Standoff or UE into these conversations - not because we make "super-awesome" games, but because we do make them at all, with the tools we have at our disposal, investing our free time and coming up with our own assets.

That is in contrast to coming up with a great idea for a mod, putting up a website, claiming that you will eventually pull through although you know it will be a huge undertaking.... and then proceeding to post here asking other people to help you make your game. Well, forgive me for not being impressed by this after witnessing the same thing amount to nothing over and over again, in the 8 years since I've started frequenting these forums. None of these people ever got anywhere, as good as their intentions were.

The history of this community has shown me that the people who did get anywhere are the ones who have given the community something, before they asked for something. Chris Knudsen wanted an ASCII version of Privateer, so he went and basically coded a whole damn game by himself, instead of asking someone to do it for him. HCl, Pedro and Pierre keep finding new ways to push a 10-year-old engine its beyond what everyone else thought were hard limits, instead of complaining about how old it is. Myself, as well as the Saga art team, or Howard Day from Pioneer, dedicated ourselves to creating practically the entirety of the art for our games, instead of butchering up Origin's original work or expecting random volunteers on the internet to provide us with their models and textures. Etc.

That's why we get brought up in these conversations. Because the community's respect is earned, and not given... and sadly, out of every billion projects that are announced, only one or two get to earn it. Not by being super-awesome games (they don't even need to be finished games) but by giving people some degree of good old fashioned Wing Commander fun, even if just from looking at cool screenshots or concept art, or from playing a one-mission demo, before we ask anything of them.

[Dyret]

Originally Posted by Eder

It's actually feasible

I think someone who know their way around the vision engine (Quarto? Pete? HCl?) said it wasn't in some thread, but that's probably a long time ago, so I don't know.

This is the reason everyone always brings up Standoff or UE into these conversations

And they should, as I said, this was the wrong thread for me to bring it up. Where it bothers me is in the "favorite wc game", "favorite character" threads, ect. Sure, it's an amazingly well made mod (not a game, though), and sure Spoons can be your favorite WC character, just don't be a weird fanboy about. In all fairness though, I've only seen one or two posters ever doing it.

[Waxman]

Well I intend to match everyone's expectations.
I wasn't asking for anyone to make it. I can make ikt on my own, all I was saying was I could use some help.

I do not mind useing an older game engine and stretching it's limits to make it work and I do not mind if I have to make my own. I have been looking at the VegaStrike engine and while it is a huge project. I have not even got the planning done yet. I just thought this fansite deserved the option of being included in every aspect of the game. That way their is less of a chance I might miss something.

I know I will not produce a perfect game (that is a myth, like an honest politician). And granted a lot of fans started a project and stopped abruptly, but that's not what I Will DO.
I have yet to look into the Standoff series or unknown enemy. They might be just right for this project. they might not but as the one who is actually going to be doing the project I will decide.

Now that I got that out of my system who will join me?
and you guy's flame war makes for some good reading.

[Eder]

My point was precisely that saying "I will finish this game! Join me!" is not enough to make you seem worth joining. If you expect your project to enlist people who have anything worthwhile to offer you, you have to give them more, because these people know a project like this requires more. They have seen enthusiasm alone amount to nothing a thousand times before. If you're just starting out and still don't have anything to show for your work, that's perfectly understandable, but it also means there's no reason why anyone would be impressed or willing to commit to helping you at this point.

Also, we don't have flame wars on these forums.

[Dyret]

Originally Posted by Waxman

and you guy's flame war makes for some good reading.

This wasn't a flame war.

[ChrisReid]

Originally Posted by Waxman

Now that I got that out of my system who will join me?

The issue is that someone drops in out of the blue every other week with a proposal like this and then promptly disappears. There's not people out there reading this thinking "this time, Waxman's gonna be the one to do it!" As Eder was getting at, the projects that attract volunteers are the ones with something material to show off first.

Originally Posted by Waxman

and you guy's flame war makes for some good reading.

This thread is about a billion miles away from a "flame war."

[Kyran]

Originally Posted by Waxman

Now that I got that out of my system who will join me?

Afraid I can't, Flight Commander is my area, not VegaStrike. It'd probably be best asking for help at the VegaStrike portal/forum/thingy if that's the route your going to take.

[Waxman]

I want a stand alone.
I could tell it wasn't a flame war as I wrote, I wrot it to get a chuckle out of people.

I understand you want to see something. I really do. I have my own forums for the game. It is going slow, I am currently writing for four other titles. But I have put it all up for you to dee the little bit I have so far.

Ithe link to the website is http://www.mercnetstudios.com it is not complete.
the forums are located at http://www.mercnetstudios.com/Brokenwords

[Kyran]

Originally Posted by Waxman

I want a stand alone.

And Flight Commander isn't standalone? Check out Wing Commander Remake and Perfect Plan (my sig) are both standalone games based on Flight Commander.

[Waxman]

That's not what I meant,
I do not wish for my game to require another download just to run.

Flight commander and standoff require the Secretopsfull to be installed to run,
Vegastrike might also, probably does I haven't had time to check yet still writing and not codeing yet but what if that goes away and I make the game. My game would be outof my control.

[Waxman]

If vegastrike does then I will use the flight commander source. Ore I might just do a total conversion off Freelancer to my universe.

Oh and I forgot to give a full link to my forums, my bad, the ling is http://www.mercnetstudios.com/Broken...pBB3/index.php

[Waxman]

Ore, really Ore. Sheesh excuse me I had a Brain Fart

[Dundradal]

Originally Posted by Waxman

That's not what I meant,
I do not wish for my game to require another download just to run.

Flight commander and standoff require the Secretopsfull to be installed to run,
Vegastrike might also, probably does I haven't had time to check yet still writing and not codeing yet but what if that goes away and I make the game. My game would be outof my control.

I highly doubt the SO starter package will disappear, especially considering all 7 episodes are now free to download from the CIC.

[AD]

Originally Posted by Waxman

That's not what I meant,
I do not wish for my game to require another download just to run.

Flight commander and standoff require the Secretopsfull to be installed to run,
Vegastrike might also, probably does I haven't had time to check yet still writing and not codeing yet but what if that goes away and I make the game. My game would be outof my control.

Originally Posted by Waxman

If vegastrike does then I will use the flight commander source. Ore I might just do a total conversion off Freelancer to my universe.

Oh and I forgot to give a full link to my forums, my bad, the ling is http://www.mercnetstudios.com/Broken...pBB3/index.php

Originally Posted by Waxman

Ore, really Ore. Sheesh excuse me I had a Brain Fart

Start using the edit button. You have two hours after you post so unless there's some reason for it like having waited two hours or replying to different people in an instance where a new post would improve the clarity of the subject.

FLight Commander is a standalone project.

[Kyran]

Originally Posted by Waxman

That's not what I meant,
I do not wish for my game to require another download just to run.

Flight commander and standoff require the Secretopsfull to be installed to run,
Vegastrike might also, probably does I haven't had time to check yet still writing and not codeing yet but what if that goes away and I make the game. My game would be outof my control.

Like AD said, Flight Commander is standalone and you can make a standalone game with it (which I'm pretty sure I've said already).

[Dundradal]

Where are these people coming from? First the guy looking for some part of an AK-47 and now this?

Little too much holiday cheer....

[AD]

Originally Posted by Dundradal

Where are these people coming from? First the guy looking for some part of an AK-47 and now this?

Little too much holiday cheer....

Nah, It's the same guy, who I'm banning. It just took this long for him to finally put a spam link in his signature.

[Waxman]

Thanks for the advice, and the option to use software. I have been absent to say the least. This project has been put on the back burner for now, writing being all that's done.
When I resume it will be a completely new and fresh project done from scratch. Not looking for volunteers right now.

I can release the Title, Broken Worlds

Please discuss, I will read your ideas, your comments, and your suggestions.